With No One to Help Us

1967
Direct
Cinema
Handheld camera
Jittery
Zoom in – Zoom out – Pivot.
Stays close to the characters.
Tight, efficient editing.
Voice-over kept to a bare minimum—just enough to set the scene.

And what a scene! A group of Black women on welfare is organizing after realizing that the stores accepting their food stamps are overcharging them. _With No One To Help Us: _the title sets the tone. No pity here, but empowerment, solidarity, and the fight for food justice. The struggling Black women of Newark, New Jersey, are immortalized in this audiovisual demonstration of grassroots self-defense. In 21 minutes and 45 seconds, we watch them expose the scam of dishonest shopkeepers and rally their more hesitant peers (nothing like a United Community Centers representative mansplaining the unlikelihood of their cooperative’s success to fire up the troops). In the end, the members of the Welfare Committee of the People’s Action Group overcome the odds, reminding us—nearly 60 years later—that our power lies in the collective.
Together, always, we rise.

Amandine Gay
Filmmaker